Wherein C.F.Barrón does his thing...

Wherein C.F.Barrón does his thing...

The One Hundredth Day

While I said I would get back into writing for everyone, I ended up digging deeper into the painting scene. Not every day was dedicated to painting a full miniature. Some were spent researching or experimenting with new techniques and theory. There were a handful of commissions here and there, but the majority of my time was spent piecing a small community together. The Artificer's Guild has been a dream come true if a bit time-consuming.
I did take a week off, while on my second honeymoon in Scotland, but aside from that, I feel like I haven't had as much time to focus on actually painting lately. New job responsibilities. New relationships to foster and nurture. It's not necessarily a bad thing, to have gone from doing to learning in this last month or so, but it's a little hard to say that I succeeded in my original goal for the 100 Days of Art.

I didn't finish any of the stories I had hoped to, although, by my base line of 500 words a day, there is at least two weeks worth of writing in the campaign write up alone. Speaking of which, expect that write up to be available tomorrow, I'm short on time today and it needs a bit of editing.

I didn't paint something new every day. But, I have found myself steering the direction of a group of dedicated individuals who care about the craft, a group I founded even.

Arguably, I did succeed in becoming a known factor in the bay area painting scene. Though that has little to do with my skill and EVERYTHING to do with who my mentor is, and where I work. (On a side note, if you want to teach a painting class in Mountain View, hit me up)

So after 100 days of this, what's the conclusion? Am I a professional now? Am I a genuine artiste? Was my life changed?

Uhhh...hard to say. I occasionally get paid for this, but it's not like I'm pulling in enough to say it's exclusively what I do now. I take myself and my work seriously, but I'm not vain enough to think I'm anything more than a guy with a paintbrush and the desire to make people say 'whoa'. I am, however, vain enough, or just self-aware enough, to believe that I would have followed this path regardless of this challenge. . . probably...

Anyway, without further humbugging, here are some pictures of what I actually managed to work on.

Commissions:

Experiments

Technical Improvements

Not pictured are my respirator and the painting hood I purchased for the guild. Nor the spiffy gavel I got for running our more formal meetings. (heh heh heh)

Thinking

What they don't tell you, and what many don't realize, about putting a good piece together is how much time you spend just planning it before you can actually start buying the supplies or assembling the individual components. No one ever tells you how hard it is to temper your imagination either. Thanks to conversations with my guildmates I can honestly say I have at least five major endeavors constantly harassing me for attention, and I haven't the slightest clue where to start with any of them.

The mental toll is never actually addressed either. Unfinished, or unstarted, projects have a way of weighing you down. Especially if you're not up for painting anything at the moment haha.

Ultimately, these 100 days have been good to me. I think I'll take a much-needed break from everything for a little while but once I'm back in fighting shape, I hope you all will be there for my next challenge.